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In the wake of US President Donald J. Trump’s June 12 summit with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un, R. Nicholas Burns, an Atlantic Council board
member who served as US undersecretary of state from 2005 to 2008,
discussed the tough work that lies ahead and lessons from a not too
distant past.

US President Donald J. Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12 is a diplomatic win for the United
States, but whether it is a strategic victory will depend on the
implementation of the joint agreement signed by the two leaders,
according to Michael Morell, an Atlantic Council board member and former
acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Even if US President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
fail to achieve a breakthrough in their highly-anticipated summit in
Singapore on June 12—Trump administration officials have been privately
ratcheting down expectations—the summit in and of itself will be
historic. It will be the first time that a sitting US president has met
the leader of North Korea. The meeting provides an important opportunity
to make headway on a protracted nonproliferation challenge.

Cracks in the United States’ relationships with some of its closest
friends and allies were on full display at a meeting of the world’s
largest economies in Canada this week.

The fissures have been
caused by US President Donald J. Trump’s America First approach that has
led to the US withdrawal from two multilateral agreements—the Iran
nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement—and imposition of metal
tariffs on the European Union (EU), Mexico, and Canada on the pretext of
protecting US national security.

Russia is attempting to influence the midterm elections in the United
States in November as well as divide the transatlantic alliance, US
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned at a meeting
co-hosted by the Atlantic Council in Normandy, France, on June 8.

US President Donald J. Trump’s suggestion that Russia be invited back to
a grouping of the world’s largest economies is likely to deepen
divisions with allies already irked by the president’s policies.

Trump on June 8 called for Russia to be reinstated into the G7 from
which it was expelled following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in
2014.

US President Donald J. Trump said on June 1 that his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will proceed as initially planned in Singapore on June 12.

Trump’s announcement followed his meeting at the White House with Gen.
Kim Yong-chol, the vice-chairman of North Korea’s Workers’ Party’s
Central Committee. Kim is the first North Korean official to visit the
White House in eighteen years.